


Hours

by valderys



Category: Lost
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He may have survived a plane crash, but for Charlie, it's just another morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004, after I'd just managed to get hold of and watch the unaired pilot!

Six.

The sun rises over the sea like a blessing, instantly turning the chill dark of a tropical night into a blazing paradise. The glare wakes Charlie up, his head muzzy from too little sleep, his face freckled with sand where he's lain, his head pillowed on his arm. He pushes himself up on his hands and blinks, squinting a little from the low lying light, watching the waves catch and reflect a hundred dazzling diamonds. Abruptly his stomach rumbles and he clutches it absently, before consciously taking his palms away and pushing them through his hair. His scalp tingles a little as he rubs it and he fleetingly smiles at the mess he must look. Far more scruffy than even rock-chic grunge would normally justify. He continues the motion and pushes the hood of his fleece off and down, and rubs his neck as well, before dragging his fingers round and tugging at the zip to open it.

On the freshening breeze he catches a hint of decay and wrinkles his nose, his appetite suddenly gone. It seems unlikely that there will be anything to eat anyway, but he doesn't even know now if he wants to look. Maybe that Korean bloke will have more fish again. Lovely. Or was it shellfish? His guts lurch at the thought and Charlie thinks wryly, well, at least it's not cabbage. The odour of decay reminds him strongly of school dinners, the yellow boiled vegetables, the powdery potato, the processed ham. Although that was on a bad day. He remembers chips and chocolate pud with slightly more fondness. Saliva starts into his mouth and he swallows, then pushes himself to his feet, before dusting off the light coating of sand that seems to blow onto and into everything when they sleep. Time for a quick wash. It will wake him up.

Seven.

Charlie watches the man with the shrapnel in his stomach slowly breathe. Apparently it is his turn. Jack – and who died and made him god, anyway? – has said that he shouldn't be left alone. Hurley was watching the man until Charlie came wandering up to them after his wash and suddenly got ordered to stand a turn. Perhaps the emergency has gone to Jack's head, what with giving all these high and mighty orders and looking like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Power corrupts, after all. Charlie snickers a little to himself and vague visions float into his mind, the image of a dusty classroom that smells of feet and chalk, and a teacher reading aloud from a book about cannibal children, her singsong voice lulling him in his memory. Perhaps Jack is just doing his job. What do people ask? Is there a doctor in the house? All of a sudden Charlie is sickeningly grateful that no-one expects a bassist to do anything in a crisis except look dumb. He can do that. Not as dumb as a drummer, of course, but still…

Hurley has gone to get some sleep. At least, that is what Charlie supposes he has gone to do, he could be off having a crafty wank in the bushes or looking for the last Hershey bar, for all he really knows. The image that puts into his mind makes him wince slightly, and then he feels guilty, for being fat-ist, if there is such a thing, or at least for the hypocrisy of it all. He has no legs to stand on when it comes to cravings of whatever kind, he knows that, the pot calling the kettle black, no argument. He tries to wish Hurley and his wank well, by way of reparation, but the image refuses to stay in his mind, it slides away like water. There is nothing even faintly erotic about it, even if he imagines himself helping, and karmically Charlie feels he can't really be doing any good, so he turns his thoughts away.

Eight.

When is he going to get relieved from this bloody stupid vigil? Charlie can't even remember the name of the man with the shrapnel in his stomach, or if he was ever even told it, and although he knows the man woke once, he isn't showing any signs of waking now. Despite being bored, Charlie is sort of grateful for that. He'd want to move, wouldn't he? And then there'd be screaming, and probably blood. Charlie isn't very good around blood, although he's better when it isn't his own. Of course, he's much better than Hurley, but then that isn't hard. Nicer man than Hitler syndrome, too easy a target. It occurs to him to wonder what Hurley would be like around vomit. Sometimes that takes people worse than blood, chucking up all over themselves at a whiff. Now that is something Charlie knows he can cope with. From bitter experience. He watches the man's chest rise and fall steadily, and his grey suit, in Charlie's mind, edges into grey sheets stiff with his own puke, in some nameless, faceless hotel. Munich, wasn't it? Or Berlin? That was when he had decided to tone down his drinking. Yeah. On tour, after all, not only the good die young.

His thoughts are jumping, he realises. Stream of consciousness style. It should be cool, a great way to be creative, he should write a song, hum the tune anyway, or think of a lyric, but he doesn't. It should be cool, but all it does is scare him. He hasn't written anything in a long time. He leans forward and watches the man's face for any tiny trace of movement, concentrating hard, watching for a flicker of awareness. The bloke's pores are huge, Charlie thinks, like great whopping enormous craters all over his skin. Kind of obscene really. And he has huge thick hairs sprouting in his nose, like great hairy spider legs. Boris the Spider. Ha ha. Charlie smiles a little to himself and wonders if anyone else will get the Who reference, and if he starts calling the man Boris will anyone ask why, or even care? Of course, unless people look really hard, no-one else is much likely to notice the hair in his nose either, but then Charlie has been staring at him now for a long time. A long, long time. He shivers a little as the breeze picks up. Nearly as long as it has been since Charlie last wrote a song.

Nine.

Tap. Tap. Tap. His nail is doing a nervous dance on the hard plastic edge of his trainer. He hugs his hands around his knees instead and looks out and away. The man is still breathing and Charlie hopes he won't stop just because he has taken his eyes off him. Superstition. Nothing wrong with that. After all, his lucky wristband has got him through many a gig. Yeah, right. He gets a little prickle down his spine, and glances back hurriedly. The huff of Boris' breath is a gentle counterpoint to the breaking surf and doesn't change, so Charlie lets his gaze drift back to the beach. Gratefully he sees Sayid coming towards him and grins, happy for the company. He gets a solemn look in return, beautiful but grave, like a dark-skinned angel out of some Biblical epic. He wonders then if that description would offend Sayid, being Moslem as Charlie supposes he is. In his mind, he's going offend everybody at this rate, and be paying off the karma forever. He lets his grin fade as Sayid comes level and squats down. Christ, we're a depressed lot, Charlie muses, as he takes the proffered airline meal, still wet from the stream where they've been trying to keep the food cool to slow its spoilage. You'd almost think it was the end of the world or something. And then has to suppress the giggles. Somehow he doesn't think Sayid would understand.

He tears off the silver foil, but carefully, and folds it into neat squares. There's no telling what they might need before rescue comes. If rescue comes. Don't think about that. His hand starts tapping out a staccato rhythm on his thigh, until Sayid looks over, idly curious. He is still squatting on the sand next to Charlie, looking as relaxed as Charlie is nervous. He tips his head to one side and one dark curl falls forward to touch his cheek. Charlie has a sudden urge to reach and brush it back, but he doesn't give in to it. He licks lips suddenly dry and abruptly pushes himself to his feet, leaving the plastic tray on the sand.

"Your turn."

Sayid nods and turns to face Boris. Charlie feels unreasonably bereft, like he's been abandoned or something, and puts his hands in his pockets to stop his fingers twitching. Sod it. All he was doing was listening to a bloke breathe. It wasn't hard. Let bloody Sayid do it. Then he abruptly walks off, sand crunching lightly beneath his trainers, towards the dark edge of the treeline.

Ten.

Flirting with danger. Charlie loves it. He's done it all his life, what with one thing and another, and as he walks the edge of the jungle, his spine tingles, and he bounces on the balls of his feet, exhilarated. Is it here? He eyes the undergrowth, ferns overly large, exuberant somehow with their lush growth, and trees taller than the trees he's used to back home in Manchester. But that isn't hard. Everything is bigger than back home in Manchester. The rest of world is bigger. By far. He can just glimpse the blue of sea and sky through the trees, and he blinks, the primary colours suddenly overwhelming him – everything is too bright, the jungle too green, the beach too golden. It's too much all of a sudden, and he stops and stares at his feet. Even the soil is too brown. He fingers his jeans pocket. The plasters on his left hand catch and scrape the fabric, catch and scrape on the contents, that shifts a little under his fingertips. If he concentrates, it's like he can feel the individual grains, slipping and sliding together under the shiny plastic, under the rough denim. He takes his hand away.

He keeps walking. Whatever it is that's out there, is still out there. It's not watching him, it's not going to leap out and devour him, not going to stop him. No. It doesn't see Charlie walking here on the edge of danger, balancing between the light and the dark, between the monster and the deep blue sea. No-one does. No one cares enough, and why should they? No-one's going to stop him. He keeps walking.

Eleven.

There's more to the light now than pure brightness. There are little flashes at the corners of his eyes, and his head feels like it's floating. He could sing if he wanted, out here where no-one can hear him, stupid made up rhymes, not proper songs, not even a medley of Driveshaft's greatest hits. Stupid stuff. More stupid even than their last single, which made it in at the glorious position of fifty three in the charts, thank you very much. Smile, smile, keep smiling, fifty fucking three. Stupid. He can't wait any more. He can't...

The slight crackle the bag makes as he cracks the plastic seal is loud and sudden. His fingers are unsteady as he pulls out a pinch, the tiniest quantity, nothing really. Nothing to see here. He pauses and waits. Fingers steadier now, can't afford the shakes, thinks instead about the pull of the music, waits for it to swell, his bass driving a beat through and out the other side, yeah, like that, and he's steadier now. That's it. Lucky wristband – who needs it? Charlie Pace, rock star. Steady as a rock. He can do this. Yeah.

Afterwards, he wipes his nose and then licks the back of his hand. Habit. A bloody give-away if anyone sees him, but they don't. He's in the jungle at the end of the world, at the edge of the world. No-one to see him fall off. The world sways crazily, a big greenbrownblue pillow, that's it, soft as marshmallow, soft and smothering, and he giggles. Beautiful. Colour is beautiful. He knew that. Didn't he know that? He closes his eyes and the colour continues. It's smeared behind his eyelids like paint, like the grey hotel rooms used to look, smeared into glorious technicolour, merging into each other like some mad Daliesque world of wonder. Much better than the grey, much better than puking his guts out and dying just one more rock star death from alcohol abuse. This is better. Much better. Isn't it?

A little later he opens his eyes. The world doesn't hurt any more. He can almost feel hungry now, and wonders if the airline meal he so carelessly abandoned would have been left for him, or whether Sayid has eaten it. Maybe Boris has woken up and been fed it a little plastic piece at a time. But no, Boris has shrapnel in his stomach, you probably don't feed anything to a man with shrapnel in his stomach. So much for clear thinking. And Charlie suddenly wonders why he's out here, in the jungle, acting like a meal himself, running around smelling like prey, a tasty bite on two legs. He pushes himself to his feet – and when exactly did he sit down anyway? – and heads for the sunlight he can see patterning the forest floor, the glint of golden sand. His fingers don't twitch now and his head is clear, and the bag is back in his pocket. He doesn't think about it. He doesn't brush the fabric next to it either any more, not any more. It will be hours before he needs to do that again. Hours.

One...


End file.
